
Glass. 
Book 



f 



A 



SERMON 



ox TUB ASSASSINATION OF 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 



PREACHED AT 



itrrcg (Kljaptl, STontmn, 



SUNDAY, MAY 14, 1865. 



BY 

REV. NEWMAN HALL. 




BOSTON: 

BARTLETT AND HALLIDAY. 
1865. 



Press of Geo, C. Band * Avery, •') Cornhill. 



SERMON 



(IN THE ASSASSINATION OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



PREACHED AT 



SUNDAY, MAY 14, 1865. 

BY 

REV. NEWMAN HALL. 




BOSTON: 
BART LETT AND HALLIDAY. 

1865. 



s 



SERMON. 



In the Inaugural Address delivered by the late lamented 
President on his re-appointment as supreme governor of the 
United States, he said of the two parties in the war, " Both 
read the same Bible and pray to the same God ; each invokes 
his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man 
should dare ask a just God's assistance in wringing bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that we be 
not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered : that 
of neither has been answered fully; for the Almighty has his 
own purposes. ' Woe unto the world because of offences, for 
it must needs be that offences come ; but woe linto that man 
by whom the offence cometh.' If we suppose American slavery 
to be one of those offences which he now wills to remove, and 
that he gives to both this terrible war, as was due to those by 
whom the offence came, shall we say there is any departure 
from the divine attributes ? Fondly do we hope, fervently do 
we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass 
away : yet if it be God's will that it continue until the wealth 
piled by bondmen by two hundred and fifty years' unrequited 
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, — 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 
that ' the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 
get I ier.' " 

These words shall be our text. The motto for our medita 
tions on his decease shall be furnished by the 'lamented Presi- 
dent himself in the speech which he delivered within six weeks 
of that event. 



Ps. xix. 9: "The judgments," &c. 

The judgments of the Lord are his revealed will, contained 
in holy Scripture, of which we say with David, "The statutes 
of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart ; the commandment 
of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." But God speaks 
in providence as well as in Scripture. His judgments are his 
acts as well as his words : it is our interest and duty to study 
both. Some persons object to ministers of the gospel referring 
in their sermons to public events. They say we ought to 
preach Christ crucified, and not talk about statesmen, rulers, 
or philanthropists. Certainly ; and a grievous dereliction of 
duty it would be, a sad prostitution of the Church and the 
Sabbath, if any secular theme were substituted for the glorious 
gospel of the blessed God. But may not passing events be 
made a vehicle for conveying truth to the mind ? What is the 
value of abstract truths if never practically applied ? The 
events of God's providence should be contemplated in relation 
to God's gospel. Instead of keeping religion distinct from the 
interests of life, and thus rendering those interests merely 
secular, and really godless, we should endeavor to hallow and 
elevate all those interests — domestic, commercial, political — 
by Christian faith and Christian feeling. Did the Jewish 
prophets never refer to political events ? Their inspired min- 
istry was directed, in the first instance, to their own age, and 
had a constant bearing on the great national events then trans- 
piring. Did not our Lord himself illustrate his teaching by 
reference to things secular ? Is not the Bible full of truth 
embodied ? of lessons drawn from the lives of men and the 
dealings of Providence ? 

There has been no death in our own day more remarkable, 
none which will have a more prominent place in all future 
history, than the assassination of President Lincoln. 11' it 
was appropriate that every pulpit in our land should make 
allusion to the death of our lamented Prince Consort, if the 
omission would have argued a culpable disloyalty, — is it not 
right, that, in all the churches of America, sermons have been 
delivered with special reference to the death of the President? 
[f we were bereaved as a nation, should we not feel grateful 
for the sympathy of Americans if they also, in public worship. 



alluded to our loss ? So also is it fitting, that (li rough out our 
country such sympathy in public worship has been and still 
is manifested, especially when we consider the unparalleled 
atrocity of the deed which has deprived them of their chief 
magistrate, and the peculiar crisis of affairs at which he has 
been taken from them. 

Besides, we are one people. We have sprung from the same 
Anglo-Saxon stock. The same mother-country gave us birth. 
The Pilgrim Fathers who colonized New England planted 
there that freedom to worship God, which was then denied 
them here, but which their posterity, both here and there, 
equally prize as more sacred than life. We speak the same 
language, cherish the same traditions, read the same Bible, 
and sing the same hymns to the same tunes. We are ani- 
mated by the same quenchless passion for liberty. Tens of 
thousands of our teeming population find a home there every 
year. Who has not yonder some near relative, friend, or ac- 
quaintance ? How many look to America as the land where, 
however unlikely it may seem at present, they may possibly 
end their days ! We are linked together by a thousand ties, 
so that their prosperity is our prosperity, and their honor ?s 
our honor. Their sorrows are our sorrows too. Let us then 
"bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 
Let us "rejoice with those who do rejoice, and weep with those 
who weep." 

There is cause for lamentation. A good and a great man 
has fallen by the hand of an assassin, who thought that, in 
striking down the nation's head, he was striking down the 
nation itself. The universal grief in America shows how he 
was honored and beloved. Twice chosen by the free voice of 
millions of his fellow-citizens to rule over them in the most 
momentous crisis of their history ; twice chosen to steer the 
vessel of the State amid waves that threatened to overwhelm it; 
exposed to their keen scrutiny in all his public and private 
acts, — he has won their universal homage and affection. Be- 
neath an exterior unlike that which is generally found in 
courts, and which gave occasion to vulgar satirists to utter 
their rude jests, there beat a heart to which courts have been 
too much strangers. In President Lincoln there was a com- 



(I 

bination of honesty, sagacity, magnanimity, and gentleness, 
such as few rulers have ever manifested. He was faithful 
to the trust imposed on him. He was firm to the purpose he 
had maturely formed. He was true to the nation whose in- 
tegrity he was sworn to maintain. He was true to those 
principles of freedom he had always professed and loved. He 
would not allow his benevolent impulses to lead him away 
from what he considered his duty to the State which he had 
engaged to govern according to law. Neither would he allow 
his official position to deaden and keep in abeyance those 
impulses. The fear of misrepresentation, the charge of in- 
consistency, did not cause him to waver in the course he had 
marked out for himself. He faithfully administered those 
laws ; but, as fast as circumstances gave him the opportunity 
constitutionally to modify those laws in the interest of eman- 
cipation, such opportunity was promptly embraced. Those 
who have not studied the peculiar Constitution of the United 
States cannot appreciate the difficulty of the position of a 
President urged on one side by a powerful party and his oath 
to observe the laws ; and urged on the other side by another 
powerful party and his benevolent sentiments to abolish slavery. 
History will honor him for having accomplished both tasks. 

In all his intercourse with this country, he manifested dignity 
combined with courtesy and kind feeling. He was prompt to 
satisfy every righteous demand without compromising the 
honor of his own nation. To his justice and moderation it is 
partly owing that peace was maintained between the two coun- 
tries on more than one occasion of difficulty. In the conduct 
of the war he united firmness with clemency. He was often 
censured as being unfeeling because he persisted in prosecut- 
ing a contest which cost so many lives. This was said to be 
lighting for empire. But fighting for empire is fighting for 
new territory, not fighting for the maintenance of nationality. 
To guard one's own country from disintegration is surely not 
lighting for empire. No empire in the world would contend 
more earnestly than our own lor self-preservation. It was not, 
therefore, indifference to suffering, but a high sense of duty to 
his country, which led him with such perseverance to maintain 
the strife. But no one ever conducted a war, or governed a 



nation amidst such perils, with so much clemency combined 
with firmness. 

One or two illustrations of his personal kindness have just 
come to my knowledge through a friend who has recently re- 
turned from the United States. This gentleman told me that 
he was one day conversing with the general in command of 
one of the armies on the subject of desertions, when the gen- 
eral said, " The first week of my command there were twenty- 
four deserters sentenced by court-martial to be shot ; and the 
warrants for their execution were sent to the President to be 
signed : he refused. I went to Washington and had an inter- 
view. I said, ' Mr. President, unless these men are made an 
example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is 
cruelty to the many.' He replied, ' Mr. General, there are 
already too many weeping widows in the United States. For 
God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I won't do 
it.' " A young sentry was found asleep at his post : he was 
sentenced to be shot. But the President came into camp and 
granted the earnest petition of the lad. The dead body of that 
youth was afterwards found amongst the slain on the field of 
Fredericksburg, and under his waistcoat, next his heart, was a 
photograph of the President, beneath which the lad had writ- 
ten, " God bless President Lincoln ! " Many similar incidents 
might be cited to show how tender-hearted he was, and how 
deeply he was beloved by multitudes who have received from 
him personal marks of kindness. 

That he rose from a most humble station only illustrates the 
more the high qualities he possessed, enabling him to overcome 
the disadvantages of poverty. He was great enough not to be 
ashamed of his origin. When a parcel, carefully packed, was 
sent to the White House, which, being opened, was found to 
contain a woodman's axe, instead of being angry at this vulgar 
allusion to his former occupation, he ordered it to be placed in 
a prominent position, on a handsome mahogany stand, that all 
might see that he honored labor, and was not ashamed that he 
once ate his bread by the sweat of his brow. 

There is every reason to believe that he was more 'ban a 
mere professor of Christianity. When he Left Illinois for Wash- 
ington, his last request to his fellow-citizens was, that they would 



8 

pray for him. It is said that he habitually rose at five o'clock, 
and spent an hour in devotion. The inaugural address already 
quoted breathes a deeply religious spirit. 80 do many of his 
public documents and private letters. In a letter dated April 
4, 1864, he says, " If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. 
If God now wills the removal of the great wrong, and wills 
also that wo of the North as well as you of the South shall pay 
fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will 
find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and 
goodness of God." 

This " wrong " of slavery, he, more than any other man of 
our day, has been instrumental in removing. It was his well- 
known hostility to it, which, on his election, was the proximate 
and avowed cause of the Rebellion. As far as his pledges to 
the law and the course of events permitted, he steadily pur- 
sued this great object. Under his auspices, slavery was speedily 
abolished in Columbia, and prohibited in the Territories. The 
slave-trade was declared penal, and the right of search fully 
granted. The loyal States were invited to emancipate their 
slaves, full compensation being offered. Then the proclamation 
was issued by which all slaves in rebel States were declared 
free ; and though, for a season, this was inoperative over a large 
district, it is now not only law but fact. During the war, two 
millions of slaves actually gained their freedom, and were pro- 
tected wherever the power of the President extended. And now, 
throughout those Southern States, long a house of cruel bond- 
age, the jubilee trumpet is sounding deliverance to the captive 
and the opening of the prison to them that were bound. Four 
millions of freedmen bless God for Abraham Lincoln ! 

At the very culmination of his labors, — just as he saw the 
failure of the attempt to disintegrate the nation, and to found 
a rival empire on slavery as its corner-stone, — just as he saw 
the triumph of emancipative victory crowning his skill and per- 
severance, he was snatched from the scene of his toils and his 
triumphs. The whole world execrates the deed. All future 
history will stigmatize it as the blackest of crimes. But for 
the victim himself shall wo lament ? Being, as we trust he 
was, a sincere Christian, sudden death to him was sudden glory. 
Be found himself in heaven before he expected. Freed from 



9 

the anxious cares of government, in a season of peculiar diffi- 
culty, he was suddenly " where the wicked cease from trou- 
bling, and the weary are at rest." Having done well what he 
was spared to do, he is now beyond the possibility of tarnishing 
his fair fame by the mistakes to which all men are liable. 
Having died a victim to the hatred which the slavery spirit 
ever bears to the stanch friends of freedom, he will be known 
to all coming generations, not only as the honest, the magnani- 
mous, the merciful President, but as the pure and illustrious 
martyr of American emancipation ; so that, whether we con- 
sider his condition in the other world or his reputation in this, 
we cannot pity him. The bullet of the murderer was a quick 
summons to the joys of heaven, and an effectual guaranty of 
fame on earth. 

We need not lament for Lincoln ; but we may and do la- 
ment for his family and for his nation. Let our tender sympa- 
thy go forth towards her, who, sitting at his side, all uncon- 
scious of the coming blow, was suddenly bereft of the endeared 
companion of so many years, during which they had shared to- 
gether both hardship and honor. Our beloved Queen, with 
that prompt, spontaneous kindness of heart which she manifests 
to all sufferers, — one royal widow to another, — with her own 
hand wrote to express her sympathy. There is not one of her 
subjects, who, if possible, does not love her the more for, and 
in spirit join her in, that act. 

We lament for the nation. They have lost their chosen ru- 
ler, whose fitness for his exalted post had been severely tested 
and fully confirmed ; under whose administration the empire 
had been preserved from disruption, and freed from what had 
been its weakness and dishonor ; and whose wisdom and clem- 
ency marked him out as specially competent to complete the 
work of pacification and reconstruction. Our brethren yon- 
der feel as if each of them had lost his own father. Never 
was such wide-spread, spontaneous, and universal grief. Whole 
cities hung with black are a feeble expression of the sorrow 
that is felt. Commerce suspends her trafficking, Mammon for- 
gets his hoards, Pleasure arrays herself in sackcloth, to join 
the general lamentation. From twenty thousand churches, 
from twenty times twenty thousand family altars, go up earnes 



10 

prayers for consolation and for succor in this their hour of pub- 
lic and of private woe. Let us join them in such prayers ! It 
will be our best expression of good will. It will be the 
most solemn and most effectual sympathy. We have already 
often implored for America under this bereavement the special 
help of Heaven. We have done it in public, we have done it 
in private. Let us do it expressly and emphatically now ! 
Yes : let us, one and all, once more, with affectionate fervor, 
implore for our bereaved sister nation the guidance, protection, 
and comfort of the compassionate God and Father of all ! Let 
us pray. 

King of kings, Lord of lords, the universal Eider, who doest according 
to thy pleasure in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of 
the earth ! we adore thy power and majesty, thy wisdom and goodness, 
thy righteousness and love. Clouds and darkness are round about thee ; 
but mercy and truth are the habitation of thy throne. Thy judgments 
are a great deep ; but thy faithfulness endureth to all generations. We 
bow with humble reverence before thy throne. We submit ; we obey, 
we confide, we rejoice in thee, our refuge and our strength. We mourn 
before thee in sympathy with our brethren in America in this their hour 
of bitter bereavement. We mourn with the bereaved family. God sus- 
tain and comfort them ! O thou Judge of the widow ! bind up the 
wounds of that broken heart. "We mourn with the bereaved nation. 
The Lord be their lawgiver, the Lord be their king and help, and save 
them. We bless thee for the maintenance of order at a crisis of so much 
peril. We bless thee for the spirit of clemency which has restrained the 
natural risings of revenge. Oh! grant a continuance of the same. We 
pray for thy servant, who, in circumstances of so much difficulty, has suc- 
ceeded to the office of supreme ruler of that great nation. Give him all 
needful wisdom and ability; firmness tempered with kindness, justice al- 
lied with mercy. Let him rule in the fear of God. May law and 
order speedily be re-established ! May the wounds of war be healed ! 
May there be an immediate and final end to slavery! May the Iong- 
oppressed negro race rejoice in knowledge and industry, in the rights of 
freemen, and the privileges of Christ's church! May America flourish! 
may she be exalted in righteousness, and employ her vast influence only 
for the welfare of the world! Unite our nation with theirs. Draw us 
together with the cords of sympathy. Let there be no envy, no ill-will. 
Oli! save us, save the world, from the miseries of war between Great 
Britain and America. Scatter thou the people that delight in war. Give 
peace in our time, Lord! give peace in all time, we beseech thee. 
And may these two nations, so blessed of God, be ever found united in 
the, toils and the triumphs of civilization, freedom, and religion! God 
save the Queen! God \>\c^ the President! Cod guard our native land! 



11 

God guard and prosper and bless America, for the sake of Jesus, the 
Prince of peace, our Lord and theirs ! Amen and Amen. 

If there is cause for lamentation, there is also cause for 
thankfulness. The mercy of God is revealed together with his 
judgments. If we weep with those who weep, we will also 
rejoice with those who rejoice. Let us, then, give thanks that 
no civil commotion has followed this murder ! There has been 
no interval of anarchy. The machinery of government has 
revolved without a moment's pause. Power has quietly been 
transferred to the next in station, without contention, panic, 
or delay. While lamenting that the blow at the individual has 
taken effect, let us thank God that the blow at the nation has 
been averted. 

Let us rejoice that there has been no outburst of popular 
revenge ! There might have been riotous assaults against the 
persons and property of all people supposed to be favorable to 
the Southern Confederacy. There might have been wholesale 
conflagration and massacre. There might have been a wild 
demand for severest measures on the part of the Government 
against all implicated in the Rebellion. There has been nothing 
of the sort. We have not heard of one act of violence. Justice 
is indeed threatened against those implicated in the murder ; 
but the same policy of clemency and conciliation towards the 
conquered which was inaugurated by Lincoln has been adopted 
and proclaimed by his successor. When we consider the 
provocations which have been given by the Vermont raiders, by 
the New-York incendiaries, by the starving to death of thou- 
sands of federal prisoners, we regard it a mark of the special 
controlling grace of God, that, under this additional and most 
monstrous outrage, the passions of the nation have been thus 
restrained ; and that, after all their victories in battle and all 
their successful sieges, they have illustrated the proverb, " lie 
that is slow to anger is better than the mighty ; and he that 
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 

We should be thankful for that overruling Providence, 
" from seeming evil still educing good," which, from an event 
so sad, ['rum a crime so horrible, nevertheless causes some 
good to follow, and makes the wrath of men to praise him. 



12 

In America tills crime has fused together all parties in one 
common sentiment of indignation, not only against the indi- 
vidual plotters and perpetrators of it, but against that slave- 
spirit, of which the crime was the undoubted and legitimate 
development. There have been misguided men, who, though 
fighting for an institution that violated all the rights of man 
and all the laws of God, were, nevertheless, incapable of 
being implicated in such an act as the assassination of the 
late President. It would be most unwarrantable to charge 
that crime, without proof, on individuals who proclaim their 
abhorrence of it. But it is just and natural to charge it against 
that slavery-spirit which the institutions of the South have 
nurtured through long years of cruelty and wrong perpetrated 
against the negro. That slavery-spirit which bought and sold 
human beings like cattle ; which separated husbands and 
wives, parents and children ; which flogged naked women ; 
which hunted fugitives with bloodhounds, and burnt alive 
and killed with unmentionable tortures those slaves who re- 
sisted their wicked will, — that slavery-spirit which organized 
ruffianism, incendiarism, and murder in Kansas ; which struck 
down Senator Sumner in the senate-house, and hailed witli 
plaudits in every city the would-be assassin ; which plotted the 
burning of New York, and commissioned plunder and murder 
on Vermont bankers, — that slavery-spirit which would have 
shot or hung or burnt to death any of us if caught in the act 
of helping one single slave to escape, — that slavery-spirit it 
was which struck down the man who had given freedom to 
four millions. This, then, will unite all parties in execration of 
slavery. If there have been two parties hitherto, one desiring 
to abolish slavery, the other only seeking to debar it from 
spreading further, there will he only one party now. All 
are resolved to extirpate, root and branch, that atrocious 
system, that embodiment of all villanies, which has so long 
prevailed in the Southern States; which caused this cruel war, 
and which now, in addition to all the lives lost in cam]), in 
battle, in hospital, and in prison, is answerable for that of 
President Lincoln, whose murderer it incited and commis- 
sioned in his deed of perfidy and revenge. We will therefore 
be thankful that at least, this good has resulted from the crime, 



13 

— that if there was previously any possibility of compromise, 
any disposition, for the sake of union and peace, to deal gently 
with the slavery question, and not immediately and completely 
to let the captive go free, there will he none now. No fear 
now that the loyal servant shall be made to submit to the yoke 
of the rebel master, and the friend be worse treated than the 
foe. No ! the death of Lincoln is the final knell of slavery. 

There is also cause of thankfulness as regards the relations 
between this country and America. There was ill-feeling in 
many minds. America had eagerly looked to the mother- 
country for sympathy in her great struggle for existence, — in 
her great battle with the most gigantic of wrongs. She 
thought she looked in vain. The great mass of the people 
sympathized ; but many of those whose opinions America most 
esteemed, looked on coldly or critically, or Avith undisguised 
sympathy for the foe. America misunderstood this country in 
some matters : in others she had cause for disappointment and 
irritation. Nor was there altogether the absence of words 
and deeds in America calculated to cause alienation here. But 
all this is obliterated in the universal sympathy elicited by this 
event. Whatever differences of opinion have existed among 
us, arising partly from incorrect information as to facts, partly 
from erroneous judgments as to the objects of both parties, all 
are one in lamentation for the murdered President, in abhor- 
rence of the crime, in sympathy with the bereaved. That 
which has emphatically been expressed by the Queen, by Par- 
liament, by municipal assemblies, is felt by every inhabitant of 
the land, from the peer to the peasant. This sympathy over 
the grave of the President will facilitate the union of all par- 
ties in accepting accomplished facts, and wishing well to 
America, united and free. And this universal sympathy ex- 
pressed here will do more than could have been done by years 
of explanation to cause Americans to forget what they had 
thought indicated injustice and unkindness on our part. They, 
as we, are a generous people. They will be melted by the 
spontaneous and unequivocal outburst of a universal sympa- 
thy. They will know that the heart of old England beats true, 
though for a season its tongue did not utter what they consid- 
ered generous and just. Buds of misconception, which might 



14 

have blossomed, and produced a harvest of contention, have 
heen nipped and destroyed. A more cordial union than has 
been felt for many years has been consecrated by this martyr- 
dom. Fears cherished by many that the civil war might be 
followed by an international war have been allayed ; and peace 
between the two nations has been rendered secure. 

And who can estimate adequately the importance of main- 
taining peace between two such empires? The recent war 
has proved that the resources, the energy, the bravery of Amer- 
ica, are not inferior to our own. What, then, must be the 
result of war between nations thus prepared and thus resolute ! 
Each would provoke the other to renewed effort. There would 
be no yielding till there was utter exhaustion. What millions 
of precious lives might be sacrificed ! how wide-spread would 
be the desolation and woe ! How would universal tyranny 
exult at the sight of the two great champions of freedom turn- 
ing away from the common foe to destroy each other, instead 
of being allies in the great conflict of truth against error, of 
liberty against despotism, of right against wrong ! If, then, 
the death of Abraham Lincoln, by evoking British sympathy, 
has tended to allay American irritation, and to unite the two 
countries in the bonds of peace and good-will ; and if it has 
ratified the late President's Emancipation Proclamation, so that 
slavery in America is buried in the same grave with him whom 
it slew, shall we not adore the goodness which blends with the 
judgments of the Lord ? 

We may, from this example, learn to trust in God when all 
things seem to be against us. To many the murder of Lincoln 
seemed at first to be ruin to America and to freedom. And 
every Christian can look back to periods when God was work- 
ing for him special blessings by methods which seemed mos1 
destructive to his welfare. The brightest morning has sonic- 
times dawned out of the darkest night. The loveliest paradise 
has sometimes been reached by the roughest path. " All things 
work together for good to those that love God." 

"Judge nut the Lord by feeble sense, 
I'.iu trust him for liis grace ; 
Behind ;i frowning Proi id* m • 
He hides :i smiling face " 



15 

There arc other lessons of an ordinary and obvious kind. 
We are, of course, reminded of the uncertainty of life. The 
chief danger was over ; the hour of triumph had come. Mr. 
Lincoln, on an occasion of national rejoicing, unconscious of 
clanger, was hurried into eternity. We may he in no danger 
from the hand of our fellow-men ; but Death is an assassin, 
who has marked out every one of us as his victim. He dogs 
our steps. We can never elude his pursuit. He is close be- 
hind us, watching his opportunity. The blow, though delayed, 
is sure some day to be delivered, sure some day to prove 
fatal. When that shall be none can know. Is there, then, no 
possibility of avoiding the danger? There is. Let us commit 
ourselves into the keeping of the Prince of life. He is stronger 
than death. He is a body-guard under whose care all are safe 
who put their trust in him. "The angel of the Lord encamp- 
eth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." 
" No weapon formed against them shall prosper." For though 
death will seem to strike, it will not be as an assassin, but as a 
friend to those whose life is hid with Christ in God. To them 
he is a friendly messenger to call them home from the conflict 
to the triumph, from the pilgrimage to the palace, from earth 
to heaven. Jesus says, " He that believeth in me shall never 
die ; " for, when the body is summoned to the grave, the soul is 
summoned to glory. 

Finally we are reminded of our divine Emancipator. Abra- 
ham Lincoln, on Good Friday, was slain, an unconscious mar- 
tyr in emancipating four millions of men from the slavery of 
the body. Jesus Christ, on Good Friday, was crucified, a vol- 
untary sacrifice in redeeming the human race from the slavery 
of the soul, from the condemnation of hell. He, the Eternal 
Word, the Son of God, beheld mankind toiling, groaning, dy- 
ing. Moved with compassion, he undertook the work of our 
emancipation. He took our nature, fulfilled our duties, suf- 
fered for our sins, died for our salvation. Of his life he said, 
" No man taketh it from me ; I lay it down of myself." " We 
are redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, 
but with the precious blood of Christ." But it was not only 
necessary that the price of redemption should be paid ; the 
spirit of freedom needs to be imparted into the abject slave of 



16 

the Devil. And this, also, our Emancipator does. "We are 
new creatures in Christ Jesus : old things pass away ; behold, all 
things become new in the case of those who believe. And all 
are invited thus to believe and be saved ; for " He is the propi- 
tiation for the sins of the whole world." 

Are we still servants of sin, slaves to Satan ? What ! when 
God himself lias published a proclamation of emancipation ? 
Let us all accept the priceless boon ! Let us cast away our old 
fetters ! Let us exult in the freedom of faith and love. Let 
us yield ourselves in grateful homage to Christ, obeying his 
laws, rejoicing in his love, and aiding to proclaim throughout 
the world, " Liberty to the captive, and the opening of the 
I rison to them that are bound ! " 



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